Thanks, that's interesting too.

One of the most useful lists I've found is actually in ONIX, Code List 7.

http://www.editeur.org/codelists.html

Although Code List 7 actually needs to be supplemented by Code List 78 
if you want full detail. (Like whether a VHS tape is NTSC or PAL; or the 
fact that a printed book is in Braille (US or UK? Can specify either, 
hooray.)). 

The ONIX list is a pretty good and complete list of physical formats for 
published items, and appears to be free, and is available in XML as well. 

It does become an awfully LONG list.  And is still not entirely 
intellectually consistent---the article Diane pointed to in D-Lib is the 
result of trying to harmonize this with library practices in an 
intellectually consistent way, but it becomes something so abstract that 
it's kind of hard to deal with, and also leaves many vocabularies 
unspecified.  I think a more or less flat list with specified 
vocabulary, even if not entirely intellectually consistent, that 
corresponds to the universe of actually existing published items, is 
probably more useful.

Jonathan

Chris Beer wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> As Esha said, PBCore might be worth looking at. It's probably one of the more complete 
> lists. If you want something more formal than the PBCore list, the EBU also has a good  
> vocabulary in an XML format 
> (http://www.ebu.ch/metadata/cs/ebu_StorageMediaTypeCodeCS.xml). The nice thing 
> about the EBU list is that some of their term definitions might help identify more obscure 
> materials.
>
>   
>> Have you looked at PBCore? It's a metadata standard developed by the  
>> Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is used for tv and other  
>> multi media cataloging. 
>>     
>
>   
>>> Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Anyone know of any good existing controlled vocabulary for  
>>>> 'format' or 'carrier' for multimedia materials?  I'm thinking of  
>>>> things like "CD", "DVD", "digital", etc.
>>>>
>>>> The closest I can get is from RDA at http://metadataregistry.org/ 
>>>> concept/list/vocabulary_id/46.html (thanks Karen and Diane), but  
>>>> it seems _really_ insufficient. As far as I can tell "audio disc"  
>>>> is used for both a CD and a vinyl disc, and there's nothing  
>>>> available there for "DVD" at all.   Or for "digital". Although  
>>>> I'm not sure what I mean by "digital", I guess CD and DVD are  
>>>> both digital, but I was thinking of something to identify a  
>>>> digital file on a computer network free of particular carrier. I  
>>>> guess that wouldn't be in a carrier vocabulary at all, after all,  
>>>> that would be sort of a null carrier. Phew, this stuff does get  
>>>> complicated quick. Which I guess is why nobody's worked out a  
>>>> good one yet.
>>>>
>>>> Too bad RDA's is so _far_ from good though. Any others anyone  
>>>> knows about?
>>>>
>>>> Jonathan
>>>>         
>
> Chris
>
>   

-- 
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886 
rochkind (at) jhu.edu